The most special angel I've ever received?

Beautiful! Thanks John.

And wha a terrible loss of your passer/clarion...that was one of my favorite fish you had...
 
wow!! Very lovely fish(all of them). As usual you surprise us with a new treat! Thanks for sharing your information with us :)
 
Finally I get to see the photos :celeb2:
And thy look good !

Sorry about you clarion x passer hybrid
 
John, I remember when Brian posted pictures of that little beauty... thanks for sharing your story and passion for angels with us!
 
Glad I was able to assist. I am really looking forward to your paper on the flame x rusty hybrid as I really love the one that I have and would love to have some more information on them. Your subtropical tank is a long term goal of mine, and will be my template when I set it up.
 
Beautiful find as always John. My LFS also receives direct shipments from Cebu. I have in the past purchased another hybrid rarity, an A. thiellei from there. My bluespot, venustus, flagfin, & blue face also came from the same location. The quality of the fish always seam to be excellent from Cebu. Have you ever had a chance to dive their John??
 
John,

Man-made actually. If it happens in Nature, that is cool. I realize I should have clarified that after I had signed off the other day. :) (Love that little Angel voice thing you did.)
And those additional fish pics later on in this thread? That is just.. Just..
I'm speechless. Or rather, I don't have any adjectives suitable to describe those two Candy Basslettes!
Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Gorgeous!
There, I channeled Steve Irwin. LOL

Sincerely,
Matthew
 
Copps...slightly OT, and please, PLEASE, nobody take my ? the wrong way...
I understand that you are researching, testing(?) these hybrids
and that is a good thing...but based on this statement:
Exchange of genes is very important in all living populations. "Hybrids" are just those offspring that result from an exchange of genes between two parents that are different enough that we deem them to to be different species. We have some exciting research coming out that will grey the lines between what we consider hybrids and what we consider species that should have reach well beyond reef fish...
Copps
do you feel that these 'hybrids' should not be removed from the ocean (except for those persons, actually doing research/DNA testing/whatever with them).
Maybe these new hybrids are "Darwin's" natural selection... and are needed for that species' survival.
Are we eliminating a 'better' fish before it can reproduce?
 
Copps...slightly OT, and please, PLEASE, nobody take my ? the wrong way...
I understand that you are researching, testing(?) these hybrids
and that is a good thing...but based on this statement:

do you feel that these 'hybrids' should not be removed from the ocean (except for those persons, actually doing research/DNA testing/whatever with them).
Maybe these new hybrids are "Darwin's" natural selection... and are needed for that species' survival.
Are we eliminating a 'better' fish before it can reproduce?

I think I can answer this one. So, in nature, selection is usually against the hybrids, unless they have a very strong advantage over the parents, in which case they can take over and displace parent populations fairly quickly. But even in those cases, genetics always favors the "pure" parental species (for complicated heredity reasons that I don't want to get into, otherwise this will get too detailed and completely highjack the topic).

So, hybrids are almost always the "odd" ones out unless in very special cases. But even if they were not, collection for the aquarium trade is so specialized and targeted (especially in cases like this) that what we remove won't make a difference in the population. In other words, it is highly unlikely that the removal of this single specimen (or the dozens of loriculus/ferrugata hybrids) is going to have an effect on the genetics of the population. And I am sure that for every one of those that was collected, at least 100 were missed.
 
I also was going to state that the OP sort of stumbled upon this fish (so it seemed from that thread he linked) as opposed to request a X+X hybrid to be caught by a diver...they probably didn't even realize what they had.

Once the fish was state side...nothing anyone can really do except take care of it!
 
I also was going to state that the OP sort of stumbled upon this fish (so it seemed from that thread he linked) as opposed to request a X+X hybrid to be caught by a diver...they probably didn't even realize what they had.

Once the fish was state side...nothing anyone can really do except take care of it!
Yes, I understood this from BEFORE this thread, and as far as I'm concerned, this fish , absolutely, went to the RIGHT person!
 
Hey John. Great stuff. The new Centropyge x, what happened to the dlorsal fin? Don't know the science that well, but any chance the potteri hybrid could mate with the multiclolor hybrid? Or is that sci-fi frankenstein stuff? Hope all is well John! T
 
Glad I was able to assist. I am really looking forward to your paper on the flame x rusty hybrid as I really love the one that I have and would love to have some more information on them. Your subtropical tank is a long term goal of mine, and will be my template when I set it up.
Thanks Mike and Nicole! (which one of you usually does the posting?)


Beautiful find as always John. My LFS also receives direct shipments from Cebu. I have in the past purchased another hybrid rarity, an A. thiellei from there. My bluespot, venustus, flagfin, & blue face also came from the same location. The quality of the fish always seam to be excellent from Cebu. Have you ever had a chance to dive their John??
I have never dived there, but I have plans next year to dive just to the east in Palau... the old western range of multicolors... :)... also perhaps looking at hitting an isolated part of the Marshall Islands... also have a couple of work trips to Hawaii and one to Guam for work, along with the standard trip to Ecuador where I hope to do some diving on the coast. Some very exciting trips next year and so I'm in the process of investing in an excellent underwater rig to photodocument it all (another cheap hobby:uhoh3:)...

Also keep in mind the difference between "from Cebu" and "exported from Cebu"... like Manilla, Cebu has become a gathering point for Philippine fish from many regions.

Copps...slightly OT, and please, PLEASE, nobody take my ? the wrong way...
I understand that you are researching, testing(?) these hybrids
and that is a good thing...but based on this statement:

do you feel that these 'hybrids' should not be removed from the ocean (except for those persons, actually doing research/DNA testing/whatever with them).
Maybe these new hybrids are "Darwin's" natural selection... and are needed for that species' survival.
Are we eliminating a 'better' fish before it can reproduce?

albano... no worries! Ask anyone who has met me and I'm about as laid back as it gets, at least when it comes to the hobby (something about traveling to tropical locations brings that out in people). Ask any question... even insult me... but don't pick on the fish! That's where I draw the line and get protective:hammer:, like when Matthew took his anger out on this poor little girl earlier in this thread... :sad2::frog:

To elaborate on what Luiz said, I'm not concerned with the collection of these hybrids. I could almost guarantee the collector had no clue what this fish was when it was collected and it was not specifically targeted. For every hybrid collected (including the much more common flame/ rusty hybrids) there are hundreds of the parent species taken... these collectors could not make a living just hunting these... and even if that were the case I would not be worried... Centropyge have high population densities relative to other angelfish genera and high fecundity... and the range of these fish is not THAT restricted... trying to think where this would possibly be an issue there is a place in Luiz's home country of Brazil that comes to mind... the place is St. Paul's Rocks far off the coast where an isolated population of inbreeding Holacanthus ciliaris (queen angels) have formed some AMAZING color variants. The most common morph is all yellow, but there is a small percentage of blue and white morphs, and an even smaller percentage of all white and koi colored morphs. I would be against removing any of those for anything but scientific reasons... as the locale is small (about four acres!) and while they have a super high population density there, they are still Holacanthus genus and do not reach the density of Centropyge... removing even a few of these queens could possibly effect the genetics in the population.

Hey John. Great stuff. The new Centropyge x, what happened to the dlorsal fin? Don't know the science that well, but any chance the potteri hybrid could mate with the multiclolor hybrid? Or is that sci-fi frankenstein stuff? Hope all is well John! T

No idea what happened to the dorsal fin, but it healed within a few days... this fish has grown so much and is AMAZING. I'll get updated photos... she now has a suntan as expected after putting her under the T5s, as does the other hybrid. I would almost guarantee these fish would not pair up, but you never can say never with Centropyge!

Copps
 
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